Oregon volleyball holds off Morrison to advance to play E-P

STERLING – The opening postseason set of the Class 2A Newman Regional quarterfinals turned out to be the most exciting of the night Monday.

Things went back and forth from the opening touch, with ninth-seeded Oregon holding off scrappy 10th-seeded Morrison 29-27, 25-19.

The Hawks (16-16) advance to play second-seeded Erie-Prophetstown (29-3-2) in Tuesday’s semifinals at 6 p.m. Morrison (7-24-4) continued to play better than its record may indicate, nearly pulling off a win in the first set after trailing 24-22.

Oregon led the first set 16-11 before the Fillies started to claw their way back. Morrison led 25-24, but Oregon always had an answer.

Madi Shaffer led the Hawks with 15 digs and an ace.

She said the team had to get out of its own head and bring up the energy to take control as play went on.

“Once we start playing together, it just goes up from there,” she said.

Anna Stender had three aces, three kills and 10 digs, while Skylar Bishop had five kills and a block.

Oregon coach Farrell Cain said the team cleaned up its errors in the second set.

“It was a team effort,” she said. “A great team win.”

Oregon led the second set wire to wire, but Morrison kept it close. Morrison trailed 10-9 and 18-14 before Oregon made its final push to the sweep.

“I saw a lot of heart and determination,” Morrison coach Jill DeRycke said. “They are a very motivated group and they have a great mindset, it just didn’t work out our way.”

DeRycke is excited for the future of the team. She said the young group has lots of potential.

“We’ve had a lot of opponents that have commended us for being tougher than what our record would say,” she said. “We can hang in there with a lot of teams, and we have done that. Our record doesn’t reflect that, but we’ve been in a lot of competitive, close games and we’ve earned a lot of respect.

“That’s kind of been our big thing here this season is rebuilding Morrison’s reputation in volleyball, and I think we started to do that here.”